I live in Philadelphia, so I am fully aware of the degree to which people worship football. Every Sunday my fellow citizens gather to watch their idols compete for glory on the gridiron, and they do so with all the pomp and circumstance of a sacrament: specific garb, foods, drinks, and even a series of secular hymns to push our favorite athletes to victory. Much like Catholics will respond to “peace be with you” with “and also with you” (or “and with your spirit” for the contemporary churchgoers) it is understood that in any and every situation one may come across here in Philly, a simple “Go Birds” always applies, and a response of “Go Birds” is always expected.
As a lapsed Catholic, I am also aware that much like the Church at large, the NFL is a monstrously evil organization that capitalizes upon all of this worship for financial gain, often destroying legions of expendable lives in the process, and they do it with full knowledge that their massive congregation will always come back for more (it should be noted that every single football fan I know who claimed “I’m boycotting the NFL” in response to Colin Kaepernick or Taylor Swift has not missed even a single game).
All of this said, the world of American Football is ripe for satire, and Him, the latest offering from Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions (it’s insane how many people I’ve had to explain it to that Peele did not direct this film) seems, on paper, poised to give professional football the scathing satirical horror treatment that has become synonymous with Peele’s name. A for effort, but unfortunately, this feature-length half-baked metaphor comes up very short of the goal line (football term!!).
This is not the fault of our stars, however. Both Tyriq Withers and Marlon Wayans turn in excellent performances. Not is it the fault of director Justin Tipping, who has shot a frequently handsome film. It all comes down to the script, co-written by Tipping, alongside Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie, which spreads the thematics so thin that watching the film becomes an exercise in waiting for what we all know is coming if we’ve ever seen a movie before.
Withers plays Cameron Cade, a young man raised in a football family. They worship the San Antonio Saviors (guh), one of the top teams in the USFF (can’t say NFL). The Saviors are led by star quarterback Isaiah White (Wayans) who impossibly remains in top form despite once suffering what would, for anyone else, have been a career ending injury. We’re talking femur-breaking-through-skin. It’s no wonder Cade wishes to follow in his footsteps. And after a mysterious, pre-draft injury of his own, in which a costumed man bashes in his skull, Cade is invited to White’s training compound to prep for pro-football greatness.
The compound isn’t at all immediately and obviously evil at every turn. It’s not like it’s cruelty drenched in red lighting, or like White is doing his own taxidermy, preserving his own blood, and acting in ways so immediately unhinged that we know that everything is not really on the up-and-up.
Wait, actually, it’s a lot like that. From moment one the compound is foreboding, scary, and so plainly evil that the only way it would work is if the film made a comment on how the promise of greatness outweighs the threat of evil. But it doesn’t. The script doesn’t seem to recognize how explicitly threatening the situation is despite it being, ahem, explicitly threatening. From the half-written cultists who hang out on the border of the property to the fact that expressly weird and dangerous shit starts happening immediately upon Cade’s arrival, there’s no good reason for our hero to stay, and his ambition should’ve been invoked in a way that outweighed the threat of sticking around. By the time he’s being forced to throw passes to volunteers athletes at the threat of another volunteer wantonly getting his face crushed in by a ball-throwing machine (one shot for for each missed completion), our hero would need a better reason to stick around then “I guess that’s just what they do here.”
And let’s ignore the fact that the film is broken into 4 segments, each with a title that doesn’t really apply all that much to the content within each one. It’s just a pretty framing device with little meat to it … a perfect microcosm of the film itself.
Despite the weak and hammy thematic structure, the occasionally plodding pace, and the fact that we all know where this sort of thing is headed (you’ve seen this template before, and better), Him nonetheless proved to be a decently fun time with a crowd. There are plenty of squirm inducing moments, and a few big laughs at the expense of Cade’s agent, played with slimy glee by Tim Heidecker, as well as a truly excellent performance from Wayans, who’s a way better dramatic actor than he’ll likely ever get credit for. For these reasons, Him is a generally enjoyable time, if not an empty one. It’s one of those rare movies that could benefit from an additional 20-30 minutes. I want to know more about the league at large; I want a slow trickle of dread rather than a steady blast of weightless scares; I want some dirt on Julia Fox’s influencer character (she gives the film’s best performance, and it feels like half of it was cut).
I’m reminded of a similar film from earlier in the year: Opus — an equally stylized and ambitious picture, but one that plays all of its cards too early, revealing itself to be an undercooked version of a narrative we’re all familiar with and that we’ve seen better versions of.
When I find myself faced with a film like this, there’s only one thing to say: Go Birds!
Directed by Justin Tipping
Written by Justin Tipping, Zack Akers, Skip Bronkie
Starring Tyriq Withers, Marlon Wayans, Julia Fox, Jim Jeffries
Rated R, 96 minutes
